Reconciled
Artist: The Call
Community Score: 7.00

Though none of the singles from The Call's Reconciled made a dent on the pop charts, the anthemic march "I Still Believe" and the galloping "Everywhere I Go" (with backup vocals by Jim Kerr and Peter Gabriel) both received significant AOR and college radio airplay. It significantly raised the profile of the quartet and their earnest, U2-like... Read More

Filigree & Shadow
Artist: This Mortal Coil
Community Score: 10.00

The second album by the 4AD collective headed by label founder Ivo Watts-Russell distills the This Mortal Coil concept somewhat. There's more of a core group now, featuring Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins, producer John Fryer, arranger Martin McCarrick, and Watts-Russell himself, backing a variety of mostly female singers. The double album... Read More

Infected
Artist: The The
Community Score: 8.35

Infected's sound still suggests dance-pop, especially on the title track. But don't get the impression that it's made for dancing. Instead of the light fare displayed on Soul Mining, Infected's songs seethe instead of preen, and Matt Johnson's lyrics are laced with tension. Thematically, he plunges a lance into the exposed midsection of Great... Read More

Freaky Styley
Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Community Score: 7.51

The closest the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever came to straight funk, Freaky Styley is the quirkiest, loosest, and most playful album in their long and winding catalog. It's also one of the best, if also one of their least heard. A year earlier, in 1984, they'd made their self-titled debut with a stiff album produced Andrew Gill of Gang of Four... Read More

Project: Mersh
Artist: Minutemen
Community Score: 8.30

"I got it! We'll have them write hit songs!" some nameless record company executive says in the cover painting to the Minutemen's 1985 EP Project Mersh, and that joke covers about half of the record's formula. While the Minutemen had been writing more melodic and approachable songs with each release, the massive barrage of 90-to-180-second songs... Read More

Up on the Sun - BONUS TRACKS
Artist: Meat Puppets
Community Score: 9.85

What does a band do when they're trying to follow up a masterpiece? Release another masterpiece, of course. That's exactly what the Meat Puppets did with 1985's Up on the Sun. Issued one year after Meat Puppets II, the songwriting had become more focused, the performances were tighter, and Curt Kirkwood's vocals had progressed from a... Read More

Out My Way
Artist: Meat Puppets

When originally released in 1986, the six-track Out My Way EP was supposed to be a stop-gap release -- guitarist/singer Curt Kirkwood had broken his finger, and needed time to recover. Musically, the EP showed that the Puppets were moving on from their early punk sound to a more traditional rock direction. But the band's originality was still... Read More

Flip Your Wig
Artist: Hüsker Dü
Community Score: 8.45

Spot -- SST's house producer who manned the boards for Zen Arcade and New Day Rising -- didn't produce Flip Your Wig, Hüsker Dü's second album of 1985, and the difference is immediately noticeable. Everything on Flip Your Wig is cleaner and brighter than on its two immediate predecessors, which is appropriate, considering that Bob Mould and... Read More

Fegmania!
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians
Community Score: 9.00

After the stripped-back collection I Often Dream of Trains, Hitchcock slowly formed a backing band called the Egyptians with ex-Soft Boys Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor and keyboardist Roger Jackson over the course of the next year. Fegmania!, the Egyptians' first album, was a distinct departure from both the Soft Boys and Hitchcock's previous... Read More

Visions of Excess
Artist: The Golden Palominos

The first in a long series of about-faces and left turns, Visions of Excess forgoes the noise-funk of the Golden Palominos' debut in favor of more pop-oriented material and staggering lineup of underground luminaries. Built around a nucleus of Anton Fier, bassist Bill Laswell, guitarist Jody Harris, and keyboardist Bernie Worrell, the album... Read More

Cinéma Vérité
Artist: Dramarama
Community Score: 10.00

Probably the greatest rock release from 1985 that almost no one has ever heard, Cinema Verite is a simply fantastic album. Blending everything from British Invasion panache and glam influences to punk energy and back again, its cult legend was established by L.A. DJ legend Rodney Bingenheimer. He played "Anything, Anything (I'll Give You)" to... Read More

Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records
Artist: Chumbawamba

Long before a song about relentless alcohol consumption ("Tubthumping") made them the toast of sports stadia worldwide, a rather different Chumbawamba stalked the toilet venues of England's counter-culture. In 1986, as the rock world congratulated itself on its new, enlightened attitude to world poverty following Band Aid, a refusenik group of... Read More